Bulgaria's anti-monopoly watchdog raids fuel retailers offices

SOFIA, April 6 (Reuters) - Bulgaria's anti-monopoly watchdog raided the offices of two fuel retailers as part of an investigation into the country's only oil refinery and seven fuel retailers for possible cartel agreements to fix prices of petrol and diesel fuels.

"The Commission for Protection of Competition raided several offices of Lukoil (Other OTC: LUKOF - news) and Rompetrol in the capital Sofia," the commission's spokesman said on Wednesday. "Our goal is to try to collect as much evidence as possible."

Lukoil and Rompetrol were not available for immediate comment.

In February, the watchdog started investigating the Bulgarian units of Lukoil and Rompetrol as well as units of Royal Dutch Shell (Xetra: A0ET6Q - news) , OMV (EUREX: 430021.EX - news) , Hellenic Petroleum (LSE: 0K9U.L - news) , Nis Petrol and Bulgarian Petrol .

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) has also launched a probe into the Lukoil Neftochim Burgas oil refinery regarding possible breaches of competition rules related to the sale of its fuels on the local market.

The investigation followed complaints by Bulgarians over high fuel costs despite a plunge in global oil prices and a request by Prime Minister Boiko Borisov that the competition authority hasten checks on the fuel sector.

The competition authority launched the full investigation after an analysis of the European Union country's fuel sector between 2013 and 2015. It found that the retail price policies of the seven companies were very similar and too slow to reflect falls in wholesale and production prices.

(Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; editing by Jason Neely)